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This was a question I thought up of last night involving Angel Beats!. I'm curious as to what you all thought of it, for those who saw the 13-episode anime, or read the Light Novel/manga. Like what did you like about it, and what didn't you like? Did you cry as much as you did the other Key works? Would you recommend it? Obviously since I'm gonna be answering my own questions, this'll be lengthy, so... yeah. Consider this a discussion of sorts.

I watched it when a brother of mine said I should. I've heard about Angel Beats! before, the opening theme was actually one of the previews on the CLANNAD DVD (if I remember correctly, I kept thinking the theme looked familiar), and I was kinda thinking about seeing it. So once he suggested it, I went ahead and took a look.

It's an interesting story. We all have our own beliefs about what the afterlife is like, but I liked what they did with purgatory here (though it made me wonder where all the children and adults go if this is mostly a high school for teenagers to graduate from). There were episodes where I forgot they were all dead, they acted so alive. The characters themselves are neat, and have distinct personalities (Yuri reminded me of Haruhi for some reason), though I wish we saw some of them more than we did, such as Shiina and Matsushita. I don't really know what genre to put this in, so for me, it felt rather fresh, if not original. It's not something I'm into, but what they did with it kept my interest. For the most part, we got to really know most of these characters on a rather intimate level, such as Otonashi (whom I felt could've had a bit more done to him), Yuri, and Hideki. These were people I felt I should get to learn more about. Heck, even Angel, who they're hunting down to kill, had this mysterious aura about her that made me want to get to know her more (and as she's the most prominent character in the opening theme...).

However, thirteen episodes is too short for such a story, honestly. It really felt rushed in some areas, or at least crammed in, and it jolted the mood a bit too much. Like for example, I'm sobbing my eyes out on one episode, and then SUDDEN DRAMATIC PLOT TWIST CUT-AWAY SCENE OHMIGOD WHAT IS THIS, which left me really confused, and I didn't want to stop crying, but I had to or it made the scene really odd. They seriously didn't give you the time to calm down before they threw such a scene at you, just for the sake of having a cliff-hanger. I don't know who the director is, but I think that wasn't too well thought-out on their part there.

Spoiler:- For those who saw Angel Beats only:

Then there's the relationship between Otonashi and Angel. This... came out of almost nowhere, honestly. I seriously thought Yuri was going to be the romantic interest since you saw more interactions between Otonashi and Yuri than with Angel, but I'm kinda glad it was more-or-less just a strong friendship in the end. It's a nice change of pace for Key, but still, Angel was... eh... I don't dislike her, but she was kinda robotic for the most part. Sure, they would show us she had some kind of personality when they were busy hunting her down to kill her, but outside of him getting stabbed in the first episode, Otonashi and her didn't really interact with each other until episode eight, I think. And then they realize they really like each other. Now I'm sure this was intentional, as she would reveal at the end that she was there to thank the person who gave her the heart, and thus they had a connection to each other. But it seemed to almost come out of nowhere, and there wasn't really enough time to watch it grow--in my opinion, of course.

Now they hint at the end of the last episode that they will eventually get to know each other more, but still... I was kinda disappointed. Does that make the ending bad? No, it's emotional (even though I didn't really cry), and it gives us a bittersweet ending, I just feel the thirteen-episode limit kinda killed the potential here.

Even though I was really melancholic during a lot of the episodes, I cried only once, and that was the above mentioned, right before the mood-killing scene. About two episodes later, I got teary-eyed, but otherwise, the show just kept me intrigued from the action sequences. There were comedic moments like what you would see in high school-centric anime, and I really enjoyed the relationship of the members of Shinda Sekai Sensen (Afterlife Battlefront), but that was it for the most part, and that's fine. I guess I had high expectations or something since Key likes making you cry, but maybe I would've been more emotional if I had seen this first before seeing CLANNAD, I don't know. The music hits it home majority of the time, though, which is not surprising, since Jun Maeda's brilliancy shines through.

For those who haven't seen it yet, and you like Key's works, I say check it out. I don't know what you'll think of it, but I liked it. More could've been done to it, but I hear they're trying to get a visual novel greenlit, which will expand on it more than what the anime and light novel couldn't do. So that's good news.

I saw angel beats a month or two before I saw clannad (I think) but I've only just found out they where both KEY, back then I didn't pay as much attention to all that kinda stuff. I have to say I really liked angel beats, I agree that it was too short, and that it was a neat idea, but I wish there was more. I cried only once through the entire thing, right at the end Spoiler:- where:

Everyone is in the room for graduation, I started crying around when the dude(I think) who always wore those army type suits did. I stayed all teary eyed right up to the bit where angel and MC saw each other in real life

but apart from that I didn't really get emotional at all. I wish there had been more explanations, more backstories for the characters, as the ones that where given where phenomenal. I wanted to know about the remaining character's backstories, especially the dude who could only speak english, and the brown haired quiet one. I really liked the music, both the OP and ED where pretty cool, and the BGM was pretty badass, I have the 2CDs of the OST on my iPhone, in fact I'm pretty sure that every album related to it, be it OST, or the girls dead monster album, has been on my iPhone at some point.

2006 Kanon is boring as hell, I wonder how much worse the good one is.

Spoiler:- games I want:

PM me if you know the where abouts or cost of any of these items, or if you are selling them on ebay
[] pokemon green (Japanese one or if in english, a rom dumped on a fake cart)
[] any fake pokemon game (PM me the name first)
[] any fake snes pokemon game (pal region)
[] lsd (the ps1 game not the drug)
[] mother3 (japanese)
[] mother3 (english) (didn't have a pal release, it will be a patched rom on a fake cart)

Speak for yourself, I felt Kanon was pretty tense at times. I still don't prefer it over Clannad but it was good imo.

So far I've found it very meh, I was expecting Clannad 2.0 but did not receive. Spoiler:- when:

wolf girl started to die and everything

I did feel a little sorry for the MC, I was like "Dude, that's got to be pretty tough to see that happen to your friend" but I kind of ruined it for myself, I laughed. Spoiler:- when:

she was dying and barely moving

and as it went to the shot of her closing her eyes, I was laughing so hard because all I could think was "She looks so stoned"
Apart from that, all of the Uguu~ and Nyaa~ crap gets on my nerves, although blue hair does remind me of me a little. That bit where she goes to pet a cat, MC tells her not to because she's allergic, and she says "But it's cute" pretty much sums up me with cats. Damned allergies.

Oh yeah, I misstyped that last post, I meant to type "2006 Kanon is boring as hell, I wonder how much worse the bad one is."

Spoiler:- games I want:

PM me if you know the where abouts or cost of any of these items, or if you are selling them on ebay
[] pokemon green (Japanese one or if in english, a rom dumped on a fake cart)
[] any fake pokemon game (PM me the name first)
[] any fake snes pokemon game (pal region)
[] lsd (the ps1 game not the drug)
[] mother3 (japanese)
[] mother3 (english) (didn't have a pal release, it will be a patched rom on a fake cart)

I like Kanon, it felt like it was Key to me. I cried only once, and that was with Makoto's arc, I was really depressed for a little bit, and I hadn't cried that hard in a while, so it was a bit refreshing, honestly. I didn't really think I would come to like her as much as I did, she was fun. But I do like the other characters, they're really good in their own right, and I think that's one of Key's biggest strengths are the characters.

Now AIR, on the other hand, I didn't like. It could be because it's twelve episodes long and thus they had to cram everything in, but it's like the plot (or what little there is anyway) just took a sudden turn even if it was to explain how everything came to being, and then the ending just... ehh... I think I would've been much more emotional had they actually had more time with the relationship between Misuzu and Haruko, because that relationship is amazing. Yukito was coming along to be a good character as well... but then the ending happened... yeah... And the side girl characters, Kano and Minagi, were pointless. They didn't really contribute much, and even when they did, their characters just weren't that interesting. BUT DAMN IT ALL POTATO IS ADORABLE.

This could be because I don't understand the Buddhist religion when it comes to reincarnation and all that, but AIR felt really weak to me. I don't know, maybe the visual novel is better, but I don't want to go look it up for myself, it just disappointed me.

I meant to type "2006 Kanon is boring as hell, I wonder how much worse the bad one is."

Kanon 06 is great. Not as good as Clannad but certainly not boring. You had no interest in Mai's arc? It was the best one. The only thing about Kanon 06 I didn't like is it didn't have a full season of character development like Clannad did. But it was not bad at all.

But remember when other blue hair was showing MC brown hair to do the thing and then beige hair wanted to do the thing but they fell over? Classic.

It was quite obvious who I was talking about, but if it wasn't, I appologise.

Originally Posted by Jb

Kanon 06 is great. Not as good as Clannad but certainly not boring. You had no interest in Mai's arc? It was the best one. The only thing about Kanon 06 I didn't like is it didn't have a full season of character development like Clannad did. But it was not bad at all.

I've heard from a few people that Mai's arc is the best, I still didn't like it, or any of the others that I've seen. Maybe calling it boring was a littl harsh, there certainly where parts where I was bored, got to the end of an episode and just did something else, but I stayed glued to my screen for some of it.

Originally Posted by Bonetail

Also, the Clannad thread's looks like it's about to turn into a Kanon thread. Just sayin'.

Even though I made it as a Clannad/AS thread, somebody said that it would make more sense as a general KEY thread, which works better.

Spoiler:- games I want:

PM me if you know the where abouts or cost of any of these items, or if you are selling them on ebay
[] pokemon green (Japanese one or if in english, a rom dumped on a fake cart)
[] any fake pokemon game (PM me the name first)
[] any fake snes pokemon game (pal region)
[] lsd (the ps1 game not the drug)
[] mother3 (japanese)
[] mother3 (english) (didn't have a pal release, it will be a patched rom on a fake cart)